Black Ships Before Troy – Week 4

The Amazon women have come to help Troy is its war against the Greeks. Helen, is still residing with the Trojans and Paris. But as long as Menelaus feels he has been wronged, he will continue to wage this never ending war. As the Amazon warriors join the Trojan warriors, they push the Greek army back, but to get personal loss. All of the Amazon warriors are killed, along with their young queen who led them into battle. King Priam gives them a lavish funeral, putting all of their ashes into an urn together and burying it with the old kings of Troy. Paris is able to get a shot at Achilles, just one lucky shot, and wounds Achilles in the heel where his mother held him when she dipped him in the river to protect him as an infant. As Achilles goes down, the moral of the Greek army plummets again, but they are not finished yet. Philoctetes is rescued from an island where he was left after he was wounded by a poisonous dragon. Odysseus and Diomedes return to get him, as the oracle has said that they will not win the war without him.

Upon his return, he uses arrows that he has poisoned from his wound, and uses them on the Trojan soldiers. He manages to wound Paris, who has men carry him to Oenone to see if she can heal his wounds. She turns him away since she is still angry that he spurned her, and on the way back to the city, Paris dies. At his funeral, a heartbroken Oenone rushes the funeral pyre with her veil pulled down such as a bride would wear, and jumps onto the pyre with him. Their ashes are mingled and they are buried together. But the battle is not yet over! The Greeks are determined to not leave empty-handed and Helen is still with the Trojans. They devise a rouse to get into the city gates, and begin to look as though they are leaving for good. The people in the city of Troy rejoice to see their shores empty for the first time in years, but they are surprised to see the gift that is left behind. As they wheel the wooden horse into the city, they are cautioned to leave it outside the gates, by the Princess Cassandra. Her warnings go unheeded, and the people of Troy are completely unprepared for what happens next..

This week we are reading “Warrior Women – The Fall of Troy”

Questions:

1. What do you think of the reasoning of the Amazon Warriors for coming to Troy?
2. Do you think the idea for the Wooden Horse was a good one?
3. Odysseus has a strange request for King Menelaus. Did Odysseus keep his word to Helen?
4. What did you think of this book?